The Arabist

By Issandr El Amrani and friends.

Dark Foreign Forces

The youth website of al-Ahram (aka, "A Diwan of Contemporary Realignment") sends a reporter to Tahrir to investigate the identities of all those foreigners in the square. (It was published Feb 11, so it was probably commissioned a few days before). It turns out that while some of them may have been a bit Iranian-looking, they were mostly journalists asking demonstrators what they wanted, rather than foreign agents handing out cash.

Given that xenophobia-mongering was one of Mubarak's main tools in trying to delegitimize the revolution, it's nice to see that the state media is tackling the "Irano-Israeli spies in Tahrir stirring up trouble" narrative head-on.